87 High Street Prahran

PO Box 229 Prahran

Victoria 3181 Australia

Telephone 03 9521 3433

Toll Free 1800 033 660

TTY 03 9521 1200

Blind Citizens Australia

This is the final issue of this newsletter for 1999, so I would to start by thanking everyone who wrote articles, provided feedback and distributed the newsletter on behalf of Blind Citizens Australia. We plan to continue with this publication next year, producing an edition each school term. I look forward to contributions from all those who wish to; share information, discuss issues of importance and I look forward to contributions from parents and students.

We decided on the theme "recreation" for this issue and hope that some of the information below will provide useful and great ideas for you and your children. A particular thanks to the students who have written articles sharing their experiences on the Space Camp and the Driving Camp.

In the last issue, I mentioned that Blind Citizens Australia was about to start a chat group for students. RVIB have agreed to host this text based chat group, however, there have been delays in compatibility with their current system. They assure me that it is almost ready, so watch out on our web page for details.

I would like to wish all readers a very Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year.

Blind Citizens Australia has developed an Education Policy Statement and is currently distributing copies to all interested individuals, educational institutions, specialist service providers in the education of blind and vision impaired people, governments and blindness agencies around Australia. This Policy Statement presents the considered and representative views of blind people with respect to their education drawing on experiences as students, parents and educators.

Access and support in education, is an issue identified by blind

and vision impaired people around Australia, and internationally,

as a major barrier in participation at all levels of society.

Members of Blind Citizens Australia have brought to our attention many incidences of difficulty encountered in gaining a place in an educational institution, receiving appropriate support and access to all areas of the curriculum. Many of these issues and the responsibility of all parties are clearly presented in this Policy Statement.

Copies of the Policy Statement can be obtained by contacting Blind Citizens Australia National office on 9521 3433 or 1800 033 660

WHERE: RVIB Burwood Residential Centre

333 Burwood Highway, BURWOOD

WHEN: Monday 10 January -

Friday 14 January 2000

ACTIVITIES:

• Sailing - Sailability - Lilydale Lake
• Horse riding
• Tandivale - Warrandyte. Affiliated with the RDA
• Water-Skiing - Disabled Skiers Association Melton

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

* Students who are legally blind

* Grade 5 to Year 9

* Students must be able to dress,

bathe and eat independently

* Students need to be mobile

* Students must be able to withstand a

full day of strenuous activity

NOTE: Due to staffing needs, students with multiple disabilities will be catered for within the 2000 Support Skills Progam.

The Program Co-ordinator reserves the right to determine the suitability of the program for the student.

COST $150.00

All meals, accommodation and recreation activities included.

Only eight places available

Telephone: Chris Headland

RVIB Recreation Officer on 9522 5222

by Friday 10 December 1999.

Information and support in Recreation & Sport for vision impaired people is now available through each of our 14 community service teams located in every major regional centre throughout Victoria. From Mildura to Bairnsdale, and from Wodonga to Eliza, plus any suburb in Melbourne.

Start by contacting the three District recreation workers;

Peter Rickards - Eastern District based at Kooyong 9864 9237

Rachael Barbara - Northern District based at Essendon 9370 6111

Noel Reed Western District - based in Geelong 5221 4100

With the user-pay approach to the provision of services becoming more and more common, it is to be expected that an increasing amount of our leisure time is likely to be spent in such facilities. The difficulty encountered by the individual with vision loss will occur, when their level of sight is not sufficient, to allow that person to cope more or less as a fully sighted person. Where the instructor or other staff needs to make an extra effort, over the short or long term, to instruct the blind or low-vision person on a one-to-one basis, blind and vision-impaired people will not participate, if they feel embarrassed or are not enjoying the experience.

These activities provided fall into three main types. Firstly, those types of activity where one is likely to go with a friend or family member including:

* Ten-pin bowling

* Indoor rock-climbing

* Go-karting

* Amusement Park

* Ice skating, and roller blading rinks

Secondly, those in which one participates in the activity by oneself, mainly for exercise, including:

* Aerobics

* Gymnasiums & circuit training

* Swimming & diving lessons, and water-exercise programs

Thirdly, holiday and travel providers, including holiday camps for children.

Participation in these types of activities are not likely to be too difficult, because the friends and family members will have a proper understanding, about how to include blind or low-vision people.

In ten-pin bowling, describing the number and location of the remaining pins, and informing players of their score at all times, is most important. If vision-impaired players are continuously putting their ball in the gutter, then use the buffers to even up the game.

In indoor rock-climbing, the sighted partner holding the safety rope needs to describe where the next hand-hold is, if the climber is having difficulties.

In ice skating and roller blading rinks, friends or family members can take turns skating with the vision-impaired skater giving verbal directions.

Go-karting places often have some karts with double seats, which allow a sighted person to accompany the unsighted driver.

Ron Anderson (Association for the Blind West Australia) made these comments:

• "The main issue is to teach the participant the correct skills, and therefore the professional staff or volunteers must have the necessary expertise;
• As many blind & vision-impaired people suffer health problems, such as diabetes and obesity, a physical fitness assessment is essential;

• All staff and volunteers should be trained under blindfold & vision-loss simulation goggles. They should also be given instructions under blind-fold so they can understand how best to get their own message across;
• Verbal instructions should be descriptive, painting word pictures, so they can understand how an exercise is performed;
• Totally blind people will require one-on-one instruction, with a lot of hands-on demonstration, so they can develop a good technique at any activity;
• Proper orientation to the building or facility is also essential, and this is best done by a Mobility Instructor from a Blindness Agency, which may also be able to help with staff and volunteer training."

The main concern expressed by leisure providers is, how the one-to-one support time to the vision-impaired user is provided, as this involves allocating one staff member to that person, or getting someone extra to help out. In the short term, this is often not a major problem, but for more than a few weeks, the management may be unwilling to allocate this resource.

Having a volunteer is probably the best solution, if someone can be found to commit the time. One way to obtain such a person with the necessary understanding of that activity is for the leisure centre to advertise for volunteers on their notice board, and offer the volunteer(s) some concession or free service or entry, in exchange for their time spent helping the vision-impaired person.

It is essential that provision is made, in the planning of these programs, for extra staff or volunteers to be provided to allow one-on-one assistance, when needed. Local and state governments have funding for this purpose, or the extra volunteer costs need to be budgeted for. Training and supervision of these people is also a key consideration, in ensuring that the participation will be enjoyable.

No doubt most people who use the Internet are familiar with e-mail, however, there is another method of communicating on the Internet which I've found can be very enjoyable.

If you have a computer running Windows 95, 98 or NT, a sound card, speakers and a microphone you can talk to people on the Internet. I'd suggest that at an absolute minimum you have a 120MHZ Pentium computer with 32MB of RAM. As an alternative to using a microphone and speakers you could use a headset with a microphone attached. You should be able to buy this type of headset at most computer stores.

There are two main advantages if you use a headset. Firstly it leaves your hands free to operate the keyboard instead of having to hold the microphone in one hand. Secondly feedback can sometimes occur if you use speakers and a microphone.

Often voice chat programs make extensive use of the Windows system tray and the mouse. Therefore it makes things a lot easier if you're familiar with how to select items in the system tray using your Windows screen reader. Also it's a good idea to know the keyboard commands used by your screen reader to simulate use of the physical mouse.

There are two main types of voice chat. Some programs are designed for a private conversation between two people. While others are designed for a group of people to speak to each other. Some programs allow both types.

Some of these programs give you the ability to write a short description of your interest and other details you may want people to know about you. I think it can often help to give your age or at least the age group you happen to be in. Otherwise if people see only your name and no indication of your age they have no idea of knowing whether you're a child or adult.

There are many different voice chat programs available. Two that I've tried are Firetalk which can be downloaded from http://www.firetalk.com and Buddyphone which can be downloaded from http://www.buddyphone.com. Both programs are free. The free version of Buddyphone displays advertising on the screen but the advertisements are totally inaccessible with screen readers. The advertising disappears once you register the program. Both programs are fairly speech-friendly.

I hope this information helps you if you decide to have a go at chatting by voice on the Internet.

SMASH! That was a sound never heard on this driving camp.

The driving camp was organised by Statewide Vision Resource Centre on Monday 22^nd and Tuesday 23^rd November at Charlton a country town about 100 km west of Bendigo.

Eight vision impaired students attended from Colac, Bendigo and Melbourne and most of us had not met each other before. The Driver Education course is organised by teachers and instructors from Charlton Secondary College.

The course is just outside Charlton and is made up of bitumen and gravel and has traffic lights, road markings and figure eight loops. There was a small hill to practice hill starts and bays to try parallel parking and angle parking. The road had curves and tight bends so we just didn’t drive in straight lanes. The school has three new Toyota Corollas – yes manuals. We had 2 or 3 students in each car with an instructor.

Because of the rainfall during the week a few students ended up going through the water on the side of the road. We managed to get ourselves out. Each student had about fifteen minutes driving during each session. We learnt how to change gears, reverse, what speeds for corners and changing road surfaces and basic road safety. We all tried the figure eight road, forward AND reverse. Some of us ended up rounding up the sheep on the track. Brian, Graham and Bernadette and Noelle were great instructors and helped all of us.

We stayed at the Charlton Motel – two students to a room and had dinner there on Monday night. We managed a few games of poker using banana chips for money. All of us had a great time and I know we are going back next year.

This 12-week course presents a systematic approach to learning braille. It caters for sighted people who have had little or no experience in using braille as well as those people who want to consolidate their grade II braille skills. The course aims to assist participants to achieve competency in Grade II braille. It does not however, provide training for the teaching of braille.

In 2000, the course will be run over twelve Tuesday evenings with breaks to coincide with term breaks. Twelve places are available, the minimum number for the course to run is 8.

The classes will be held between 6.45 and 9.15.

Participants on the course previously have included:

• parents of children with vision impairments;
• teacher aides supporting students with vision impairments in primary and secondary schools;
• teachers;
• colleagues/secretaries of a person with a vision impairment;
• professionals working in the area of vision impairment;
• people working as volunteers with people with vision impairments.

For more details about this course and to receive an information and registration sheet, please contact:

Ramona Mandy

Adult Braille Instructor

Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind

201 High Street, Prahran Vic 3181

Tel: 9520 5521

Fax: 9521 3685

Every year in January, The Guide Dogs Association of Victoria’s mobility Training Centre runs a program exclusively for young people with vision impairments.

The program for January 2000 has been designed for young people in secondary school, who are considering being more independent in their travel beyond the family home.

The program has been designed to be a mix of Orientation and Mobility instruction and an outdoor recreation adventure focus. Great fun for all.

Date January 10 –14

Cost There is no cost

Contact Kaye Jones Training Centre Manager

Phone 9854 4445

RVIB Library and Information Service is a registered Victorian public library providing library and information services to over 6500 clients with print disabilities. A large collection of alternative format materials is provided for loan. Audio, braille and electronic texts are available for loan, as are talking magazines, talking newspapers and audio described videos.

The Library provides services free of charge to clients with print disabilities living in Victoria. We also provide service to clients in South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania on a fee for service basis with agencies in those states.

People with print disabilities are those who cannot obtain access to information in a print form because they are blind or vision impaired; or have physical disabilities which limit their ability to hold or manipulate information in a printed form; or have perceptual or other disabilities which limit their ability to follow a line of print or which affect their concentration.

The library also provides a reference service known as PAISA - Print Alternative Information Service of Australia, which provides a telephone reference service for people with print disabilities requiring quick access to information. Qualified staff will answer reference enquiries over the phone, or provide them in the preferred format of the requester, for example braille, audio, large print or computer disk.

Answers are provided from a wide variety of sources including the Library's own reference collection, the Internet, and the State Library of Victoria's vision service. PAISA is a unique service in Australia, and a major breakthrough in library and information service provision to people with print disabilities. PAISA is a free service.

We also provide reference and research services to staff of the RVIB and its clients. A particular strength is the collection of reference materials relating to blindness and vision impairment.

Support is provided for students and clients in the workforce with urgent information needs via our Student and Vocational Support Service. Materials are provided to them in alternative formats. An extensive search, using a variety of national and international databases, is first undertaken to locate the materials required. If the required information is found, it is ordered on behalf of the student. If the required information is not available in a suitable format, our audio, braille, large print and disk production facilities are available to produce the material in the required format.

Our Special Transcription Service exists to meet the significant demand, which exists among clients for a service, which will quickly transcribe a range of brief, one-off information materials. The service is restricted to items which are no more than 30 pages long, for example equipment instructions, letters, bills, magazine or newspaper articles, pamphlets etc. Material to be recorded must be supplied by the requester. The Special Transcription Service is free. All registered Library & Information Services clients are entitled to use the service.

Applications for membership can be obtained by contacting our Reader Services Department. All applications must be accompanied by verification of print disability.

Reader Services can be contacted on (03) 9521-3400 (for metropolitan Melbourne)

OR 1800 33 55 88 (outside the metropolitan area).

Lyn Robertson at Statewide Vision Resource Centre found the Children’s Braille Book Club web site. They offer a new print-braille children’s book every month for pre-school through third grade. The same children’s picture book you buy at any store is enriched with the identical text in braille embossed on transparent plastic sheets. Prices range from US$4.95 - US$15.96.

• Free Membership: Entitles you to receive monthly notices (in print or braille) describing each month's feature book. You are not obligated to buy.
• Yearly Membership: For $100, you can automatically receive a print/braille book each month.

National Braille Press

88 St. Stephen Street

Boston, MA 02115

Phone: (617) 266-6160

Fax: (617) 437-0456

In September and October of this year, I and two other VI students from

Melbourne travelled to the United States to participate in a camp held

at the US Space and Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. This camp

runs for sighted and light-dependent students the whole year, and runs

for blind students for one week in September/October. This week was

and is the brainchild of Dan Oates of West Virginia, who visited Australia last year and held a talk at RVIB about Space Camp.

The first couple of days of the camp were primarily for getting to

know the other students. There was a turn-out of better than 190, from

more than thirty American States and from five foreign countries:

Australia, Canada, Israel, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. In the first

twenty-four hours we'd found groups of sorts (or groupies, depending

on your viewpoint).

The rest of the week was spent working everyday from 7:00 in the

morning to 11:00 at night, learning about all facets of space-travel

and undergoing training programs based on those actually used by

training astronauts. Apart from a variety of lectures of many

different subjects, we spent much of our time on the "training floor",

where all the simulators of space-hardware were, including shuttles,

space-stations, and even a mock-up of Mission Control, in most cases,

similar or the same as what was used by astronauts during

training. Much of our training took the form of mock-missions: three

one-hour missions, and the EDM (or extended duration mission), which

lasted for six hours. Each of us had scripts that we had to adhere to

for the mission to be pulled off successfully. Our counsellors (team

leaders in Aussie vocab) had the power to do virtually anything during

these missions, from causing cabin pressure in the shuttle to drop,

battery failure, a crew member breaking a bone, going mad or coming

down with something life-threatening. The crew had to cope with all

these events, using what documentation was available.

As well as the more structured missions aboard the shuttle,

space-station or in Mission Control, we used a number of other

simulators, each of which demonstrated a different aspect of

space-flight. One such machine was the Multi-Axis Trainer (MTA), which

was designed to simulate an early capsule going into a tumble upon

re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, which basically means it turned

and twisted in all three dimensions with its occupant at the

centre. Another was "Space Shot", in which the occupant is shot up a

40-metre tower and then drops back down again. The acceleration and

deceleration is such that you are four times your normal weight on the

way up and lift off the seat on the way down. A *big* adrenaline

rush.

Perhaps the most memorable event for me during the week was when we got an opportunity to go SCUBA-diving. The facility includes a 24-foot (7.2-metre) tank, a replica of the one used to train astronauts for a zero-gravity environment. It had a model of a satellite at the bottom that can be repaired, manoeuvred etc, although I didn't know that at the time. We had been told that the lack of sounds would make it difficult to navigate. In fact, I found I still had a sense of down

and, although it wasn't exactly easy, was able to keep track of where

I was.

So much else happened, and I keep remembering things that did happen, but that is a brief outline of what the week was like. We were all utterly exhausted when it was over. The whole camp was a memorable and educational experience, and a great way to meet other blind people on an international level. I strongly suggest, that anyone with an interest in space/science should at least consider attending in the future. It is both rewarding, and challenging, both physically and

mentally.

For more information about Space camp you can Email Dan Oates at:

scivis@raven_villages.net.